Saunders, Phillip C.

Director, Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs

Areas of Expertise: China; Asia and the Pacific; International Political Economy; Deterrence; Nuclear Policy; Missile Defense; German (Conversant); Mandarin (Fluent)

Dr. Phillip C. Saunders is Director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs. He has been a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies since January 2004. Dr. Saunders served as Director of Studies for the Center for Strategic Research from 2010-12, with responsibility for supervising the Center’s research on regional, global, and functional security issues.

Dr. Saunders previously worked at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where he served as Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program from 1999-2003 and taught courses on Chinese politics, Chinese foreign policy, and East Asian security. He has conducted research and consulted on East Asian security issues for Princeton University and the Council on Foreign Relations and previously worked on Asia policy issues as an officer in the United States Air Force.

Dr. Saunders is co-author with David Gompert of TheParadox of Power: Sino-American Strategic Restraint in an Era of Vulnerability (NDU Press, 2011) and co-editor with Andrew Scobell of PLA Influence on China’s National Security Policymaking (Stanford University Press, 2015). He has also edited NDU Press books on Chinese contingency planning, China-Taiwan relations, the Chinese Navy, and the Chinese Air Force. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on China and Asian security issues in journals such as International Security, China Quarterly, The China Journal, Survival, Asian Survey, International Studies Quarterly, Pacific Review, Orbis, Asia Policy, and Joint Forces Quarterly.

Publications:

Phillip C. Saunders, “Implications: China in the International System,” in Roy Kamphausen and David Lai, eds., The Chinese People’s Liberation Army in 2025 (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2015), pp. 301-333.